User:Andy58

After serving as a radio mechanic in the Royal Australian Navy I worked for IBM for about 1 year and then joined AWA [Amalgamated Wireless Australasia Limited] where I worked on the AN-FPS 16 radars located near Woomera Australia from 1962 to 1966. I was crew leader on these redars. Their actual location was at Red Lake, which is about 43 km North of Woomera, and at Mirikata, located about 210 km North West of Woomera and 100 km South of Cooby Pedy. In 1966 I was transferred to the ATS Transportable Ground Station at Cooby Creek, near Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. I've written an article about the Cooby Station for Wikipedia. I was successively Shift Senior Technician, Operations Controller, and Microwave Supervisor. In the later role I was responsible for the 6GHz transmitter and the 4 GHz liquid helium cooled MASER and paramp receiver, in which role I lead the crew in field stripping and adjusting the MASER on a number of occasions. The had a spell in the Sydney office as a technical representative then was transferred to the NASA Tracking Station at Carnarvon in Western Australia as the AN-FPQ 6 Supervisor. This assignment lasted about 3 years and I then came to Sale, in Victoria, as manager of the local AWA office which primarily provided communications service to the ESSO Australia offshore oil and gas platforms along witht ehir onshore support infrastructure. I later joined ESSO, first as a production controller and then as a technician in the Systems Control Group. This group maintained the onshore production control computer facilities and the associated data systems on the platforms as well as the radio links to the platforms. The computers in use were a PDP8, which had an expanded memroty unit, all 4 k 12 bit words, which meant it had 8 k of RAM and two hard drives, glass platters 30 cm in diameter which had a capacity of 32 kwords. In addittion a Data General 800 [exact number eludes me] drove a removable disk drive collection system, and a Data General 1200 [gain the number eludes me] with 1 k of core RAM. ESSO had actually paid the supplier to physically remove 1 K of the original 2 k. About the time I joind SCG the expansion of the offshore facilities meant the PDP8 could no longer cope so it was replaced by a  Honeywell computer system, and at the same time, the data collection and control systems on one platform were replaced by a  Honeywell TDC 2000 Distributed Control System, what was in fact a LAN with a number of intelligent modules to carry out the closed loop controls of levels, pressure and flows. The success of the first system lead to a the installation of the Honeywell DCS on more of the platforms, and I became involved in training engineers, technicians and operators in the use of these systems. Not long after the Bailey DCS came into service and my training role broadened to include that system. The Bailey ahd a vast advantage over its Honeywell competitor in that it was HDD based and thus auto booted, whereas theHoneywell used 8 inch floppy disks and operators had to use two of the disks to boot the system, and to press various keyboard keys, not an easy process at 0200 hours when you may not have had to use the procedure since your training days 6 months ago. I was frequently called at night to talk someone through the process. About this time I became involved in a project to fit an advanced radar system to two of the platforms and transmit the data to shore for use in monitoring potentila intrusion of shipping into the Maritme Exclusion Zone surrounding the offshore platforms. The platforms just happened to be in the direct line between Gabo Island and Wilson's Promotory. An IMO exclusion zone forced ships to divert from that line. Intrusions were a problem, the collision of a ship with one of the platforms was always a worry. The original protective shut down systems on the platforms were implemented using relays. The availability of the Triconex treblly redundant PLC gave an opportunity to replace those systems with a well proven system. So, I was also traing the people on that system. I retired from ESSO in 1997.